Dorman Coaching Too Conservative...

[1st&Goal]

There's no doubt that there was a lot riding on the game. That's why both teams played hard and the difference at the end was just one point. But consider in '09 dorman lost by 7 points in the regular season and then beat Byrnes by double digits in Columbia. Next year dorman beats Byrnes by 7 points and loses by double digits in Columbia to the rebs.

That doesn't mean dorman will even make it to Columbia this year and if we don't it might very well be because of seeding but I'm hoping we have yet to peak.

Dorman has a rep for laying an egg when its a critical game on the line. The "BIG" game seems to elude Dorman more often than not. That is one advantage Byrnes seems to have on Dorman.

[DeCav]

On the contrary I give most of the credit to the opponents of big games that dorman doesn't come out on top of. I agree we are not a firecracker program like some of the other contemporary schools in this state but I don't see our boys going out there and laying eggs. In our losses, even when the score is not that close I've seen many fans compliment the fight and determination we show.

Did Byrnes lay eggs the last two post seasons? Did they lay an egg in '09 in the big game? Lets put aside the fact that you're the ducks for a moment (did you see what I did there?)...either you laid eggs, your opponent wanted it more than you, or they were better coached.

Friday night Dorman's defense was playing well and we were getting stuffed on short yardage no matter who had the ball. Our coach who is known for not being a gunslinger elected to punt and we lost the game by one point from a kicker who'd missed the previous attempt. How is that laying an egg?

Anyway, just my opinion.

[1st&Goal]

On the contrary I give most of the credit to the opponents of big games that dorman doesn't come out on top of. I agree we are not a firecracker program like some of the other contemporary schools in this state but I don't see our boys going out there and laying eggs. In our losses, even when the score is not that close I've seen many fans compliment the fight and determination we show.

Did Byrnes lay eggs the last two post seasons? Did they lay an egg in '09 in the big game? Lets put aside the fact that you're the ducks for a moment (did you see what I did there?)...either you laid eggs, your opponent wanted it more than you, or they were better coached.

Friday night Dorman's defense was playing well and we were getting stuffed on short yardage no matter who had the ball. Our coach who is known for not being a gunslinger elected to punt and we lost the game by one point from a kicker who'd missed the previous attempt. How is that laying an egg?

Anyway, just my opinion.

Ummmm....Dont go all Gaffney on me(The Duck comment) just yet there Grasshopha. I wasnt talking about the players. I mean the title to thread is "Dormans Coaching too Conservative". So...Unless Hill or the Def. team captain are calling their own plays. My "Laying Eggs" comment was meant for the Chicken Coop coaches in big games.

Now...As for the 09 title game and other games you mentioned. I did say "more often than not". Again, No dig on the players. But...my comment does not mean ALL games. Just as it says..."More often". If I had more time I would go into more detail. But as for now,I wll just give one example.....The State game against Spartanburg that Dorman was highly favored to win.

[DeCav]

E-Godz man! What would give you the idea dorman was highly favored to win that game?
Spartanburg was #1 in the state and Dorman was #2.

They'd met at John L Martin in the regular season both undefeated and Dorman lost by 1 because of (you guessed it) a bad extra point conversion.

Dorman lost the championship by a touchdown. That's your example of dorman coaching laying an egg? In Gutshall's 2nd year of head coaching a school that'd never been to the big stage before?

I would agree we layed an egg in 2010. Undefeated and we go to state and just get trounced by the Rebs who we'd already beaten that year.

I get frustrated by dorman coaching too but losing to the #1 ranked team by 1 point isn't what I consider laying an egg. The Rebs were stout enough to overcome all their penalty yards and we weren't good enough to overcome our mistakes and an opportunistic rebel team.

As a Dorman fan I see the sky as firmly in place for the time being.

[DeCav]

And in the interest of preempting you, no...the Dorman/Spartanburg series of '94 does not bode well for us this year.

[1st&Goal]

E-Godz man! What would give you the idea dorman was highly favored to win that game?
Spartanburg was #1 in the state and Dorman was #2.

They'd met at John L Martin in the regular season both undefeated and Dorman lost by 1 because of (you guessed it) a bad extra point conversion.

Dorman lost the championship by a touchdown. That's your example of dorman coaching laying an egg? In Gutshall's 2nd year of head coaching a school that'd never been to the big stage before?
Everyone but the paper(They usually pick the winner of the first game anyway) was say Dorman would get its revenge in the state. Everybody was looking for a rematch. Even SHS fans was praying that Dorman would be knocked off in the playoffs. Most people around the area really thought Dorman would pull out the win against SHS. And im my years I have seen Dorman have many good teams that would fall to SHS teams that were questionable due to poor game game planning or play calling.
I would agree we layed an egg in 2010. Undefeated and we go to state and just get trounced by the Rebs who we'd already beaten that year.
That would be another example
I get frustrated by dorman coaching too but losing to the #1 ranked team by 1 point isn't what I consider laying an egg. The Rebs were stout enough to overcome all their penalty yards and we weren't good enough to overcome our mistakes and an opportunistic rebel team.
Thats kind of what Im saying. Dorman could have won that game(in my opinion) if the O would have fed that running back somemore in the second half. Its like every play they were looking for JJ. I know he is the go to guy...But DANG!!! He cant do it all.Even when Dorman played SHS and JJ got banged up(what a tough kid) the O started to sputter.

As a Dorman fan I see the sky as firmly in place for the time being.

[Sibilance]

Gotta give Decav his due...He summaraized it pretty well in his initial post. I focused on the first point. He had many other good points. I too thought that Shanard was starting to find holes...he has never been a fast starter, its like he has to find the rhythm of the defense before he starts to make an impact. #42 has come up big for us this year a couple of times. I say run, run run...PASS..Run, run PASS PASS PASS.

#7 did not have the impact that he had in other games. maybe he tried to be too cute, maybe the PLAYS were too cute...Its kinda like Lesean McCoy of the Philly this year. He is juking and stuttering and not following blockers. I was suprised to see the GATA on 1st down a couple of times...but it didnt seem like the Rebels were.

I think we are a complete enough team now where we can use the RUN to set up the PASS. My God, we did that with Raymond Smith so well...(yes I know we dont have that type of runner now) From what I hear we have 8th graders from Fairforest and Dawkins that are the REAL DEAL. Cant wait...

SPECIAL TEAMS. Ouch baby, very...ouch. We saw from the Sparkle game how great it is to have a kicker that can boot it out of/into the endzone. Both Dorman and the Rebs have had those types of kickers. Not anymore. Having to go for a 4th down from within 25 yrd field goal range is sad.

[DeCav]

Everyone but the paper(They usually pick the winner of the first game anyway) was say Dorman would get its revenge in the state. Everybody was looking for a rematch. Even SHS fans was praying that Dorman would be knocked off in the playoffs. Most people around the area really thought Dorman would pull out the win against SHS. And im my years I have seen Dorman have many good teams that would fall to SHS teams that were questionable due to poor game game planning or play calling.

B#1!
Have you hijacked 1st's account?

Now you're just getting down right subjective. If this were a wikipedia article there would be flags every where asking you to cite your sources.

Of course Spartanburg did not want to play us again that year. Why would they?? They beat us by 1 point in a winner takes all TD at the end of the game in regular season and we were the #2 ranked team at the end of the regular season. It is no argument that Dorman was highly favored to say that the Vikes didn't want to play us again. It's just common sense that they didn't want to play us again. They had nothing to prove at that point. There was no moral or logical reason for them to want to see Dorman again. I will grant you that it is easy to say that Dorman was highly favored to be the most likely team in the state to beat Spartanburg for the crown but by no objective measure were we highly favored to win the game. That one game is probably as close to a wash both in expectations and realizations as a game can come. (The '89 Rock Hill/Northwestern game comes to mind but the post season rematch proved not to be so dramatic.) Just because Dorman had a great team that year and wanted revenge doesn't mean we were highly favored. The game was highly anticipated, I'll give ya that...but it's a stretch to say that either team was favored over the other and downright puzzling to suggest that one team was HIGHLY favored over the other. Everyone agreed the '94 championship was a toss up and it came down to the last possession of the game. I'm just saying it's a bad example of a game where a coach goes in and "lays an egg".

Dorman wins some big games and we lose some big games. Sometimes it's because of coaching calls and other times it's not. Dorman knows how to win big games and we've done it a number of ways. We've had epic comebacks such as the 2000 championship where we were losing 24-0 in the 3rd quarter and came back to win the game 31-24. We've jumped way out in front and stayed in front such as the '08 region championship where Dorman went up 35-0 before Brandon Thomas' injury and we won 35-28. And we've stayed step for step with an opponent, eventually edging them out for the win such as the '09 championship when we went up by 3 points near the end of the game and a pick 6 and subsequent drive ending interception sealed the deal.

I'll be the first one to admit I wish we'd win more games and I can see how people sometimes argue that Dorman's football program doesn't live up to it's potential but I don't agree that Dorman lays a lot of eggs in big games. Now the Gamecocks, there's a team you can convict of that.

Gotta give Decav his due...He summaraized it pretty well in his initial post. I focused on the first point. He had many other good points. I too thought that Shanard was starting to find holes...he has never been a fast starter, its like he has to find the rhythm of the defense before he starts to make an impact. #42 has come up big for us this year a couple of times. I say run, run run...PASS..Run, run PASS PASS PASS.

#7 did not have the impact that he had in other games. maybe he tried to be too cute, maybe the PLAYS were too cute...Its kinda like Lesean McCoy of the Philly this year. He is juking and stuttering and not following blockers. I was suprised to see the GATA on 1st down a couple of times...but it didnt seem like the Rebels were.

I think we are a complete enough team now where we can use the RUN to set up the PASS. My God, we did that with Raymond Smith so well...(yes I know we dont have that type of runner now) From what I hear we have 8th graders from Fairforest and Dawkins that are the REAL DEAL. Cant wait...

SPECIAL TEAMS. Ouch baby, very...ouch. We saw from the Sparkle game how great it is to have a kicker that can boot it out of/into the endzone. Both Dorman and the Rebs have had those types of kickers. Not anymore. Having to go for a 4th down from within 25 yrd field goal range is sad.

I'm not certain about it but from what I've seen it looks like teams show up thinking they're either gonna shut JJ down or get to Hill. When they can't do either they have to make an adjustment and we start getting running lanes. I just haven't seen any evidence that Dorman can be a run first team this year. I think the Spartanburg game went the way it did because of key dropped passes by the other receivers, and us not leaning more on the run game. When JJ went down, Spartanburg's defense didn't have to honor the pass nearly as much. If we'd kept running the ball I think we would have beaten Spartanburg. Not positive about that, it was only tied when JJ fumbled but we had the ball and were driving at will against the Vikes and running the ball very well. The Collin to JJ threat is definitely the lynch pin of what we do. Something happens to either of them and things kind of fall apart. The offensive and defensive lines for Dorman are excellent this year but I've seen such good defense from other top tier teams this year. The margins just don't seem as wide for any one team this year.

[mikey]

I ain't seen no defense in years from anybody....it's a lost art....